Dear Lord

The title of the post below comes from a hymn, "Dear Lord and Father of mankind", which was very popular, and maybe still is, for all I know. Every word is seared into my damaged subconcious as the result of horrible humiliation dealt upon my 12-year-old self.

I had been warned throughout primary school never ever to sing, having a voice like a bullfrog that could be detected amongst massed tuneful tinies. I was "one of the droners" who was told to stand neatly in the front row and mouth the words in time to the music.

Unfortunately when I came to the secondary school, my music teacher had an unshakeable belief that there was music in each one of us, to which we should thrillingly give voice. Some way into the second year she either noticed for the first time, or decided she could no longer ignore, the fact that I was noiselessly mouthing along. And I was hauled out to the front of the class.

It was in one of the wooden prefabs that had been thrown down after the War as a temporary measure and which was still in the same place the last time I visited the school (probably in the 90's). The class sat on those folding wooden chairs that I have always associated with Sunday School. At the front was an upright piano and to this I was bidden, the teacher, sensing my terror, putting her arm around me and encouraging me in a way which I am sure she intended to help but which only deepened the panic. I was told to start at the second verse. I think I managed two lines. By that time the teacher's musical sensibilities were shredded and the entire class was giving vent to unstoppable hysterical laughter.

I have never sung since, not even to my children, although I occasionally threatened it if they didn't behave.

I have, I am pretty sure, no innate musical sense. I cannot recall a tune unless it has words set to it - in which case it is easy to remember as I can remember the shape and sound and speed of the words. Play me two notes and I would struggle to tell you which was the higher. Much later in my life I met a man whose task it was to teach would-be members of the clergy to sing, and who maintained that no matter how tuneless and musically incompetent they were, he could teach them to perform well enough to fulfill their offices. Perhaps if I had met him earlier he could have taught me. As it is, and thanks in part to that idealistic music teacher, I avoid places where they sing and if I cannot, I am the one silently mouthing along.